


Four Words of Mine

by suitesamba



Series: Four Words [7]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Mpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-06
Updated: 2012-05-06
Packaged: 2017-11-04 22:43:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/399009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suitesamba/pseuds/suitesamba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b>Summary:</b>  Severus and Harry consent to pose for a wizarding calendar to raise money for the war orphans. They just didn’t count on the numerous wardrobe changes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four Words of Mine

**Author's Note:**

> **A/N:** Series inspired by the Facebook post question: _"We wake up in (jail) together. What's the first thing you say to me—use exactly four words"_ A special thank-you to for permission to use one of her original characters in this story, the ever-popular “Teeny Nagini.” Beta’d by the incomparable .
> 
> **Disclaimer:** Not mine. Never were. Never will be. No profit is being made from this amateur work.

“It’s for the orphans.”

“Nothing is worth this,” Severus groused, deftly avoiding the young witch who was trying to powder his face with a giant powder puff.

“The children _are_ worth it,” whispered Harry.

“No! Not another wardrobe change!” complained Severus as another witch came toward them with two sets of white robes draped over her arm. He folded his arms and looked at her suspiciously as she held up what looked like an over-sized house-elf’s pillowcase.

“Roman togas!” she exclaimed brightly. Severus was relatively sure the witch was one of his former students—a Hufflepuff—but he couldn’t remember her name or quite place her face.

“Togas?” he snarled at Harry, as Harry dutifully began to remove the Leprechaun outfit he was wearing.

“For March 15,” beamed the witch. “Headmaster,” she added with a giggle.

“The Ides of March,” said Harry helpfully.

“I know what date March 15th is,” said Severus irritably. “What I do not understand is why you failed to mention that it was a Page-a-Day calendar when you informed me we’d be ‘doing’ March.”

“Oops,” said Harry, shrugging. He didn’t sound sorry. He let the assistant wrap the toga around his body and tie it over his shoulder. One of his nipples was exposed. Severus reached over and pulled the fabric upward. The assistant frowned and pulled it back down then turned to face Severus.

“You’re next, Headmaster.” She brandished his toga like a weapon. He looked down at the green travesty he was wearing—green with gold sparkles, in fact—sighed deeply, and began to unbutton the giant gold buckle at his waist.

They posed for the calendar photographer in their togas, Harry lying on his back on a plush red velvet couch, Severus leaning over the back dropping plump grapes into his mouth.

“I fail to see how women can find this stimulating,” he said as Harry raised his body to suck a grape out of Severus’ hand, catching his finger and sucking on it suggestively as well. 

“Oh, Headmaster!” breathed the helpful assistant. Antoinette. He remembered her name now. A disaster in Potions. “Many women find male-male relationships to be utterly _romantic!_ ” She exhaled deeply and sighed as she ended the sentence. He could nearly see her heart pound behind her robes. “Especially when the two men are so obviously in love….” She trailed off and looked over at Harry, smiling dreamily.

“What do you mean ‘so _obviously_?’” He frowned as Harry adjusted a laurel wreath on his head. “What makes you think that Professor Potter and I are in love?”

A wide, knowing smile split her face. She almost tittered. “Did you see how he was _looking_ at you when he sat in that pot of gold, waiting for you to find him in at the end of rainbow? The camera doesn’t lie, Headmaster Snape.”

Severus glared at her, but he must have been losing his touch for she grinned and walked away, leaving him with the photographer who instructed him to lie on the couch on his side, back knee raised suggestively, while Harry knelt on the floor and fanned him with palm fronds.

“This…this we can do at home,” Severus murmured, only for Harry to hear.

“With the togas?” asked Harry, eyebrows raised in interest.

“Togas are not necessary,” answered Severus. “And I fail to see how they sell calendars.”

“This sells calendars,” said Harry, leaning in to capture Severus’ lips in a soft kiss. He raised his hand—the hand not holding the palm fronds—and ran it lightly down the side of Severus’ face. Severus’ own hand came up and around Harry’s neck, pulling him closer to him.

_Click! Click!_ The camera zoomed in for a close-up, firing off shots in rapid succession.

Severus groaned.

“This toga covers nothing at all,” he hissed into Harry’s ear.

Harry grinned and turned his head to look back at the photographer.

“If you’ve got enough of these, we’re ready for the Roman gladiator and soldier costumes.”

~*~

“I am not putting that on.”

“Oh come on Severus, it’s just for a couple of shots.”

“It is a lion costume. I am a Slytherin.”

“It’s not a Gryffindor costume, silly. It’s March. Comes in like a lion—remember the saying?” Harry was doing all he could to convince Severus but the man wasn’t budging.

Severus glared at the wardrobe witch and shook his head stubbornly.

“Fine. I’ll wear the lion costume but you know what that means, don’t you?” Harry managed to look both exasperated and smugly satisfied at the same time.

“No, what does that mean?” Severus smiled semi-triumphantly as Harry was zipped into the ridiculous lion costume. He stood there, holding his tufted tail in one hand, while the wardrobe witch fitted a felt hood with a ridiculous mane over his own mane of messy black hair. The headpiece resembled a child’s winter hat more than the magnificent lion head hat Luna Lovegood had worn to Quidditch matches during Harry’s sixth year.

“It means, Headmaster Snape, that you get to wear the lamb costume!”

Antoinette held up a wooly white abomination while Harry twirled his tail so hard that it slapped Severus across the face.

“March, Severus,” he said, grinning. “It comes in like a lion, goes out like a lamb.”

Severus stared at the costume, moving his eyes to the wardrobe assistant behind Antoinette who was holding the headpiece. 

“Fine. I’ll be the lion,” he growled.

“What are we doing for Mother’s Day?” Harry asked Antoinette as he removed the lion’s head hood.

“Nothing!” barked Severus. “And if we were, _you_ would be the mother. You were the one that was pregnant, after all.”

“As if I’d forget that,” Harry groused.

“As if I would,” countered Severus, and Harry knew by the face he made that he was thinking of the ‘no penetrative sex’ ban.

Harry rolled his eyes. “What else is in March?” he asked. “How about the vernal equinox?”

“We’ll be acting out a Druid bloodletting ceremony,” Severus grumbled.

“Wait. Weren’t the druids peaceful?”

“They practiced human sacrifice,” answered Severus, yanking the lion hood out of Harry’s hands and staring at it distastefully before sighing and putting it on his own head. Harry thought Severus was the saddest looking lion he’d ever seen.

“Human sacrifice?” Harry turned to the photographer, a mischievous look on his face. “How do you feel about photographing children?”

~*~

“It’s for a good cause, Severus,” assured Harry an hour later as he and Severus lounged on the formerly red sofa—now transformed to a comforting neutral tan—in casual clothes. Harry was wearing jeans and a plain white button-down, cuffs turned up, baring his forearms. Severus, in turn, was dressed in black trousers and a black button-down, his casual black robes covering all. Holly was asleep in his arms, while Harry held the not-quite-asleep Ivy. Calla sat on the floor at their feet, gleefully dismembering the plush lamb the wardrobe assistant had given her as a prop.

“I do not like exposing them to the public eye like this and you know it,” said Severus. “Besides, they are only six months old. They have not yet developed antibodies for even the most common of Muggle and wizarding ailments. Someone might _touch_ them.” He looked suspiciously at the wardrobe assistant, clearly a potential baby-napper.

Harry dropped his head onto Severus’ shoulder at the photographer’s direction and Severus’ arm tightened around his waist. “It’s a controlled environment,” he said. “And you sprayed so much disinfectant potion around before they got here that we could perform surgery on the floor. You even made the photographer put on latex gloves. He looks ridiculous…”

“He had an open wound on his hand.”

“It was a paper cut, Severus.”

“Hmph.” 

“Just remember that the money goes to the orphans,” Harry reminded Severus. “You know, children with no parents?”

“I know what an orphan is,” answered Severus, placing his hand on top of Harry’s, which rested on his knee, and obliging the photographer by staring at their joined hands until his eyeballs hurt. “But these are _our_ children.” He looked up and smiled on cue. His face contorted as he attempted to follow the photographer’s directions. “What do you mean ‘softer?’” He narrowed his eyes and looked suspiciously at the latex gloved photographer. “This _is_ soft!” 

Harry squeezed his hand. “At least our children _have_ parents,” he said, his voice carefully low. “And they’re not asking us to dress up like farm animals anymore.”

“A lion is not a farm animal.”

“Fine. Farm animals and zoo animals.”

“It would have been more interesting if they’d paired that lion costume with the Roman gladiator getup.” 

Harry smothered a laugh. Ivy let out a loud burp. Harry wiped drool off her face with a practiced thumb.

Calla was now holding the lamb’s head in one hand, the body in the other. She turned and threw the head in Severus’ general direction. He plucked it out of the air deftly as Calla crawled up to sit between her sisters, half on Harry’s lap, half on Severus.’

“Not exactly child-safe, is it?” asked Severus, looking crossly at the wardrobe assistant. “One too many _Reparos_?”

“How many Teeny Naginis have we gone through?” whispered Harry.

“Babies!” announced Calla. She kissed Holly’s head as the photographer, nearly orgasmic at the opportunity to photograph the Snape-Potter offspring despite the latex gloves that made him look more like a coroner than a photographer, zoomed in and began clicking madly. 

“Babies, indeed,” sighed Severus. But he smiled tiredly as he said it.

~*~

“It’s a darling picture,” said Minerva.

She was sitting in the Headmaster’s office after the first pre-term faculty meeting of August. 

“My daughter, holding a dismembered plushie toy, to illustrate March ‘going out like a lamb?’”

“Quite fitting for March 31st, don’t you think?” asked Minerva. She watched as Calla tossed away the decapitated head, holding the lamb’s body by the tail in the other hand and swinging it around to hit Harry in the groin.

“Quite,” said Severus. “Though I think I prefer the pot of gold photograph they used for March 17th.”

“Oh, the one where Harry is giving you _that_ look,” said Minerva with a warm smile.

“Yes,” said Severus with a sigh, flipping back through the calendar then tilting his head a bit to study the photograph in question.

“You feel the same way, you know,” said Minerva, glancing at Severus to gauge his reaction. She picked up the calendar. “Here, look at March 22nd.”

She ruffled through the pages and put the calendar down with March 22nd displayed. Harry was holding both babies in the photograph, and Calla was standing up next to him, leaning on his shoulder, messy black hair pressed into his, so Severus could not tell where one head began and the other ended. She had Teeny Nagini around her neck and one hand on Ivy’s head, entwined in the baby’s own messy black hair. Ivy’s face was scrunched up, undoubtedly protesting the fingers pulling her hair. And Severus...Severus was looking not at his impish two-year old, every bit as clever and troublesome as both of her famous fathers, and not at the beatific twin babies with chubby hands and cheeks, but at Harry. Harry, looking every bit as fit as he ever had, with broad shoulders and narrow waist, tousled hair and trademark green eyes. But Harry looking different somehow—settled, content, at peace. At home.

And the look in Severus’ eyes said _I can’t believe he is mine. That this is mine. All mine._

“Holly and Ivy,” said Minerva fondly. “You had that planned?”

“We did not expect them to arrive on Christmas day,” returned Severus. “And Ivy was supposed to be Albus.”

“A fitting name,” said Minerva. She looked up shrewdly at Severus. “Perhaps you’ll be able to use it….”

“No.” Severus shook his head. “No. Definitely not. We are already one over our allotment.”

“Your allotment?”

Severus looked at her oddly. “Yes, two. One for Harry, one for myself. The world has too many people vying for its resources already. We have replaced ourselves now and added one.” He sighed, looking at March 22nd. “I have convinced myself that Ivy replaced Albus, since he never had children of his own.”

“He would have approved, Severus,” said Minerva, squeezing his hand. She looked up at the portrait of the old headmaster on the wall. He winked at her then closed his eyes again, pretending to slumber. 

Minerva stood up and dusted the crumbs from the biscuits they had shared over tea from her robes.

“And Severus?” She paused at the door and looked back at him.

“Minerva?”

“You and Harry may have my replacement as well.”

She stepped aside to avoid the yellow and green pacifier that Severus threw at her.

“Really, Severus. I mean it,” she said, then nodded and went on her way.

And Severus summoned the pacifier, tucked it back into his pocket and turned to look at Albus’ portrait.

“Perhaps someday, old man,” he mused. “But if we have an Albus, he shall be a Slytherin and think of himself before the greater good….”

“We’re done, Severus.”

He turned to see Harry at the door, a twin perched on each hip, Calla charging at him swinging Teeny Nagini over her head like a lasso.

“But Minerva….” 

“Three, Severus. You said it yourself. Three.”

They stared at each other while Calla climbed into his chair, opened the middle drawer and pulled out a bag of gummy worms. She offered one to Teeny Nagini then popped it into her mouth when the stuffed snake made no move to consume it. Severus glanced at his oldest daughter then back at Harry.

“Three,” he said, nodding.

He gathered up Calla, put away the gummy worms, and walked over to the door.

“He had his fingers crossed,” called out Albus’ portrait as they stepped onto the moving stairway.

Fortunately, Harry didn’t hear him.

_Fin_


End file.
